Peace and Justice Post

by George Katsiaficas , ahrc.net, Feb 14, 2011

Around the world, people are enthusiastically greeting the “Egyptian Revolution” — the astonishing victory won by the historic 18-day People Power Uprising. As events move more rapidly than anyone can anticipate, not only has Mubarak been deposed, his corrupt parliament has been dismissed and new elections promised within six months. People’s ecstasy in the aftermath of these great victories belies the fact that Mubarak’s authoritarian system remains intact –nay, strengthened–by the ascension of Suleiman and the military to supreme power in Cairo. While the world hails the Egyptian “revolution,” a more sober assessment of recent events would question the accuracy of that label, at least for now.

If we look at other countries for comparison (and there are many recent examples of People Power Uprisings suddenly ending the reign of longstanding authoritarian regimes), I am especially struck by parallels with Korea’s 1987 June Uprising, when for 19 consecutive days, hundreds of thousands of people illegally went into the streets and battled tens of thousands of riot police to a standstill. On June 29, the military dictatorship finally capitulated to the opposition’s demands to hold direct presidential elections, thereby ending 26 years of military rule.

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Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik speaks during a news conference in Cairo February 13, 2011. Egypt’s new military rulers said on Sunday they had dissolved parliament, suspended the constitution and would govern only for six months or until elections took place, following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

Credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s new prime minister said on Sunday the country was being governed in the same way it was under the ousted president — remarks likely to infuriate protesters keen to dismantle Hosni Mubarak’s ruling system.

Apparently seeking to reassure Egyptians that everything was under control, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said government affairs were being presented to the Higher Military Council, “as they were presented to the president of the republic”.

“There is no change in the form, method or process of work. Matters are completely stable,” he told a news conference.

Shafiq was appointed by Mubarak after he sacked his former cabinet on Jan. 29 in a vain effort to quell an uprising against his rule.

Mubarak stepped down on Friday, handing power to the Higher Military Council, headed by Defence Minister and armed forces commander Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. The council said on Saturday Shafiq’s government would stay on until a new one was formed.

“All matters are presented to the higher council, and the president of the higher council, as they were presented to the president of the republic,” Shafiq said, signalling no alteration yet to the system of rule protesters want to change.

Shafiq said he believed Mubarak was in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, and that the cabinet had not made any request to freeze the deposed president’s assets abroad. The cabinet spokesman added that “if there is a need, they will do it”.

Shafiq said the military would decide the role of Omar Suleiman, who was appointed vice president by Mubarak last month. Suleiman’s position has been in doubt since Mubarak resigned on Friday, handing power to the armed forces.

ECONOMY

Finance Minister Samir Radwan told the same conference he expected economic growth to slow to 3.5 to 4 percent in the 2010/11 financial year. Before the upheaval, officials had forecast about 6 percent growth.

Egypt’s economy is “solid and cohesive”, Shafiq said. “We have enough reserves in the coming period and our situation is comforting, very comforting.”

He added that he did not expect Egypt’s nuclear power plant projects to be affected despite political turmoil. The country has said it aims to build four nuclear plants by 2025.

But if instability continues, he added, “some obstacles may occur and there may be some delay,” without giving details.

He also pledged to fight corruption, another grievance that fuelled the uprising. “I guarantee that this (cabinet) will return rights to the people and fight corruption,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed and Edmund Blair, Writing by Tom Perry and Alexander Dziadosz, Editing by Alistair Lyon and Elizabeth Fullerton)

by Maidhc Ó Cathail, Foreign Policy Journal, February 12, 2011

In a February 3 Washington Post op-ed piece titled “Why Obama has to get Egypt right,” George Soros wrote that the U.S. president had “much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy.” Notwithstanding the reasonableness of his advice, past experience suggests that the Hungarian-born hedge fund manager has something to gain himself from regime change in Cairo.

In his public memo to the president he helped elect, Soros noted that it was a “hopeful sign” that the Muslim Brotherhood was cooperating with Mohamed ElBaradei, whom he disinterestedly described as “the Nobel laureate who is seeking to run for president.” He neglected to mention, however, that up to ElBaradei’s January 27 return to crisis-torn Egypt, the former IAEA chief had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, which Soros, the thirty-fifth richest person in the world, helped create and finance.

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When the Dust Settles, US Policies Will Remain the Same

By JAMES ZOGBY, Counterpunch, Feb 11 – 13, 2011

When US politicians are forced to discuss critical Middle East matters, more often than not their remarks either display an ignorance of facts, are shaped more by political needs than reality, or are just plain dumb. Commentary about the popular revolt in Egypt provides a case in point.

There was no doubt that the events in Cairo were momentous and, therefore, deserving of response. In the case of most US political leaders, however, struggling to come up with the right TV sound bite didn’t require actually knowing anything about Egypt. All that was needed was to frame the issue through either the prism of partisanship or that of unbending loyalty to Israel. The result was a string of comments, some bizarre, others dangerous.

The new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for example, cornered the market on incoherence and contradiction when she observed that “Mr Mubarak should… immediately schedule legitimate, democratic, internationally recognised elections,” adding however that “the US should learn from past mistakes and support a process which includes candidates who meet basic standards for leaders of responsible nations — candidates who have publicly renounced terrorism, uphold the rule of law, [and] recognise Egypt’s… peace agreement with the Jewish state of Israel.”

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World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board, Feb 12, 2011

The World Socialist Web Site hails the downfall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. There is justified jubilation in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other cities, as millions of Egyptian workers and youth celebrate their historic victory.

These extraordinary events are a turning point not only for Egypt, but for the entire world. They have shown the immense social power of the working class, unanswerably refuting claims that the collapse of the Soviet Union signified the “end of history”—that is, the end of class struggle as a factor in human affairs. The victorious heroism of the masses of Egypt in the face of torture, arrests and repression are an inspiration for workers and youth around the globe.

Mubarak’s resignation was a humiliating about-face from his speech, delivered less than 24 hours earlier, in which he provocatively refused to step down. It was also a blow to the military brass, which issued a statement on Friday morning supporting the transfer of authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman, the longtime head of the Egyptian intelligence agency.

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by Badri Raina, Feb 1, 2011

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young in Cairo was heaven.

That friend who always has something

up his sleeve beyond what seems,

beyond the moment’s  magic,

already puckers his canny brows,

and, tragically distant from the glory

in Tahrir Square, counsels caution:

“ok,” he says, “but where will all this lead”?

To him I say, “knowledgeable thou art,

and professional to the finger-tips that will

no doubt type back a cold-blooded column,

full of ifs and buts, and  leaks from ‘reliable sources,’

and a construction of events

that will make the millions of secondary import,

I say to you what has happened in Cairo

puts to shame all our ifs and buts, our

cold-blooded columns, our reliably-sourced

wisdoms of conspiracies and stratagems;

in the political history of the world’s darkest

days, Tahrir Square was where

the Second Coming happened;

Jesus came as Gandhi, and smiling ever so

sweetly with  the sad pity of judgement,

blessed the  peaceful and peace-making

legions of hateless and patient sons and daughters

of the ancient Nile, rewarding

their undaunted faith, made breachless

by common labour and common resolve,

with what they deserved.

At Tahrir that happened which

not the smartest of us in studied proficiency

could ever stipulate or foresee.

Will we now have the sense and the spirit

to  take it from here, and for mankind’s sake,

set our hearts, minds, and sinews together

a new earth and a new heaven to make?

Cairo, Tahrir was the site for epiphany;

we either have or do not have

the eyes to see.

The stepping down of Mubarak is important for a number of reasons. The people have dared to challenge the tyrant and they have forced him out of his presidential palace in Cairo. We have heard that he has moved to private residence in Sharm el-Sheikh –  another palace! So he has moved from one palace to another palace!! There was not much of a change as far as his luxurious life-style is concerned.

His accumulated wealth by his predatory plunder of Egypt is said to be from  40 to 70 billion dollars! This criminal tyrant should not be allowed by the Egyptian masses to get away with the plunder or his crimes. All his bank accounts should be declared the property of the Egyptian state. His palaces? How and by what methods he acquired a palace in Sharm el-Sheikh? That palace also belongs to the people of Egypt. The place of this criminal is not a palace, but a solitary prison cell as many victims of of his oppressive regime had experienced. This shameless dog is a disgrace to the fair name of Egypt.

Even though this tyrant leaves the political scene, his system is still intact and it will remain so in the foreseeable future. He made his chief torturer Omar Suleiman his vice president in the last two weeks. And now this criminal thug is acting as a new power-broker in Egypt! He should also be tried for his crimes against the Egyptian people.

The whole regime should be held accountable and its top brass put on trial in peoples’ court, which we hope the Egyptian masses will set up soon. All the ‘property’ of Mubarak and his accomplices should be confiscated and the criminals punished according to the rules of criminal law.

The mystery surrounding Raymond A. Davis, the American former Special Forces operative jailed in Lahore, Pakistan for the murder of two young motorcyclists, and his funky “security” company, Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, in the US continues to grow.

When Davis was arrested in the immediate aftermath of the double slaying in a busy business section of Lahore, after he had fatally shot two men in the back, claiming that he feared they might be threatening to rob him, police found business cards on him for a security company called Hyperion-Protective Consultants LLC, which listed as its address 5100 North Lane, Orlando, Florida.

A website for the company gave the same address, and listed the manager as a Gerald Richardson.

An investigation into the company done for Counterpunch Magazine that was published on Tuesday, disclosed that the address was actually for a vacant storefront in a run-down and almost completely empty strip mall in Orlando called North Lane Plaza. The 5100 shop was completely empty and barren, save for an empty Coke glass on a vacant counter.

Now Tom Johnson, executive of a property company called IB Green, owner of the strip mall property, says that the 5100 address was rented by a man named Gerald Richardson, who used it to sell clothing. “We made him move out in December 2009 for nonpayment of rent,” he says. Johnson recalls that at one point when Richardson was leasing the space for his clothing store, he told him, “Oh, I have another company called Hyperion which might get mail there.”

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